23 April 2016

There continue to be important debates about the place for religious
diversity within our society, and that’s not something we should take
lightly. However, Québec needs not fear the absurd results to which the
Flying Spaghetti Monster has taken other parts of the world and should
really stop spending so much money on such nonsense.

14 April 2016

Quebec’s Bill 101 states that, “civil administration shall use only French in signs and posters, except where reasons of health or public safety require the use of another language as well.” The CISSS de Gaspésie was apparently in violation of this clause by having bilingual signs both for matters of health and safety (i.e. instructing people to wash their hands or wear masks in certain areas) but also for more minor instructions, such as directions to an examination room.

La Presse reports
that Prime Minister Philippe Couillard has intimated that an
announcement on the charter is imminent, with plans to ask supermarkets
to use French signage on their store facades. It reports, though, that
due to the previous legal decision, the government has cooled on the
notion of forcing companies to add a French descriptive term to their
trademark.

Lyle said the letter he received is vague, saying only that he contravened a law and that future action may be taken.
A spokesman for the OQLF said the letter is only for information purposes, and there are no penalties involved. The agency's goal, Jean-Pierre Le Blanc said, is to let business owners know that French-language versions of such promotional stickers exist.
"This is one of about 300 to 400 letters we sent this month to businesses," said Le Blanc. "It's not an investigation. It's not a complaint. It's an incentive."

13 April 2016

Even as English is again under attack at the National Assembly during the hearings on Bill 14, it is perhaps true that most Quebecers have been misled into believing that English is not also an official language of Quebec. But that’s entirely unfounded in fact or in law. English has been an official language of Quebec ever since 1763. Every law passed since then has been passed in English. Every law to be passed by the current Parti Québécois government will be passed in English as well as French, and the English text will be official, just as will be the French.

English is part of Quebec’s very identity. That part is largely what makes the difference between Quebec and other former colonies of France, such as Guadeloupe, Martinique, Louisiana, Haiti, Vietnam or Algeria.

So how has the myth been propagated that French is the “sole official language?” It began with the trickery of Robert Bourassa’s Bill 22 of 1974, the so-called “Official Language Act, which proclaimed – in English as well as French: “French is the official language of the province of Québec.” ...

Activist Murray Levine began a campaign recently to urge Quebecers to
ask the SAQ to install bilingual signs in some areas of Quebec, in
light of the fact the provincial Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s
(LCBO) policy is to provide services in French as well as English in 112
of its 634 outlets.

“In Ontario’s 25 designated areas, the
operational signage in every LCBO store must be bilingual,” says the
board’s policy. “This type of signage includes stores’ permanent signs
and general notices, such as those in the aisles and for customer
service.”

Ontario’s French Language Services Act states that there
are 26 designated areas where service is guaranteed in French by the
provincial government. The criteria is 10 percent of a city’s population
must be francophone, or there must be a population of at least 5,000
francophones in an urban area.

09 April 2016

Quebec’s entire political class disgraced itself ... when the province’s National Assembly unanimously passed a motion that would be spurned as an absurdity in just about every mature democracy. Even Philippe Couillard’s nominallyfederalist Liberal members supported a motion that condemned the federal government for defending Canada’s constitutional order against a unilateral secession by Quebec.
The motion stated: “[Quebec’s] National Assembly condemns the intrusion of the Government of Canada into Quebec’s democracy by its determination to have struck down the challenged articles of the Act Respecting the Exercise of the Fundamental Rights and Prerogatives of the Québec People and the Québec State. The National Assembly demands that the Government of Canada abstain from intervening and challenging the Act respecting the exercise of the fundamental rights and prerogatives of the Québec people and the Québec State.”The Act in question is Premier Lucien Bouchard’s Bill 99, which was passed in 2000 to counter the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling in the secession reference, and the federal Clarity Act. The Court had insisted that a majority vote for secession, even a “clear answer” to a “clear question,” would not give Quebec a mandate to secede. Independence could be achieved legally only through an amendment to the Constitution of Canada with the Parliament of Canada and the provinces concurring ...